Spirit remain hot on the road, stopping Kitchener

KITCHENER, Ontario -- There's no place like the road as far as the Saginaw Spirit are concerned.

Saginaw left Kitchener's Memorial Auditorium Friday night with a hard-fought 4-3 victory over the Rangers, giving the Spirit their fifth win in their last six road games.

"I don't know how much emotion we had in us (playing our second road game in as many nights), but Kitchener played a good game and worked hard; we really had to battle to win," Saginaw head coach Todd Watson said. "We will lose some games this year, but our guys feel like they belong out there with anyone."

Saginaw improves to 18-8-0-1 with its third triumph in row, allowing the Spirit to remain in second place in the West Division and third overall in the Western Conference.

A red-hot Jordan Szwarz showed the way for Saginaw, finishing with three assists, giving the 17-year-old right winger six points (2-4) in his last four games.

Spirit center Tyler Murovich, a night after contributing three assists in a 5-2 road victory in Brampton, notched a goal against Kitchener. Murovich has five points (1-4) in the last four games.

Also scoring for the Spirit were Jack Combs, Joe Pleckaitis and Chris Chappell. Combs also added an assist and extended his points streak to 12 games.

The last four games the line of Murovich, Szwarz and Pleckaitis has combined for 15 points.

Eddie Pasquale was once again in goal for Saginaw, and he stopped 41 of 44 shots. The Spirit, meanwhile, finished with 37 shots on former teammate Parker Van Buskirk.

"It was another good game by Eddie," Watson said. "He's playing well right now."

The Spirit opened the scoring at 6:58 of the first period with Murovich putting the puck in the back of the Rangers' net.

Kitchener made it 1-1 at 12:16 on a power-play goal by Chris MacKinnon.

Saginaw moved back in front 2-1 with a goal 23-seconds into the second period off the stick of Pleckaitis.

Combs extended the Spirit lead to 3-1 at 8:18 of the second period.

The Rangers narrowed the gap to 3-2 in the final minute with Scott Timmins' scoring Kitchener's second power-play goal of the game.

Timmins scored his second goal of the game at 2:58 of the third period, bringing the Rangers all the way back. But Chappell netted a power-play goal less than two minutes later to put the Spirit in front to stay 4-3.

"We gave up that goal early in the third and the guys didn't panic, they just went out and got a good power-play goal," Watson said. "The crowd is a big factor and the early goal got them going. We just fought through it to get the win."